Free Ride!

November 4, 2007 Meeting Minutes

Page history last edited by will 2 yrs ago

Free Ride! Meeting Minutes, Sunday November 4, 2007, 1pm at 7 Beelen St

{Scribe's comments marked with {these} curly things, "FR"=Free Ride, "CJ"=Construction Junction}

Getting started, we decided to:

- Plan on finishing the meeting by 4pm

- Postpone the agenda item about purchasing a building

Calendar:

- December meeting location: maybe we can meet at the Merton Center?

- Signs have been posted and the website updated about open shop closing for Handmade Arcade on Saturday November 10

Proposal: Close open shop for Thanksgiving (Thursday November 22)?... yes

- Morgan will make a sign about it

Retreat this winter:

{lots of discussion about who would be around when, some time in January/February sounded like it ought to work}

Proposal: Make a "vacations" page on the wiki for people to post when they will be around in Jan & Feb...Yes

Reportbacks:

Jessica (on the volunteer/inreach committee meeting):

- Discussed what to do with the volunteer (aka fix for sale) night on 1st & 3rd Wednesdays:

+ Perhaps it could be a "volunteer night" open to people who have recently put in at least 4 volunteer hours

+ This would be a time for working on fix for sale bikes, volunteers to working on their own stuff, hanging out, and helping to get new volunteers involved

- Going to work on signs and the bulletin board

Andalusia:

- Wants to start an outreach and publicity committee

- Wants to redo the website (or have somebody redo it) so that it uses WordPress and is easy to update

- Wants to update the website

Shaun:

- Wildcats (aka financial committee) meeting Wednesday night at Nico's

Jake (CJ):

- Still haven't heard much from Deb (keep an eye on the CJ wiki page for updates)

- Will be out of town for part of December

Scott (Programs committee):

- Just finished the housing authority class, and they're excited about doing it again in the future

- No classes planned yet for the rest of this year

Erland (on the shop committee meeting):

- Talked about the idea for using a Google Docs spreadsheet to track payment for special orders and who has paid up

- Talked about replacing the existing nice parts cabinet with a display case so people could see what's available. This would also involve a locking plywood cover, or the like, to protect the glass when nobody is around

- There is now a clipboard on the bulletin board by the register for recording stuff that needs to be ordered

Morgan (inreach):

- Going to work on planning the retreat

Discussions:

Suggestion (or maybe a fast proposal?): Committees ought to pick a spokesperson to report on their meetings

Proposal: Should we buy a Wilton model 1745 vise from Grainger and two Park Tool FRW-1 freewheel tool wrenches...Yes

- Will, Shaun, and Jessica will take care of getting the vise

Getting a fridge for the shop:

- Morgan has one to donate if somebody will take it to the shop

- Stuart will modify it to prevent burning out the motor (as happened to previous refrigerators due to the doors getting left open)

What happened with the unstaffed Saturday?:

{contentious discussion of using Google Calendar... several people didn't like it}

We discussed different strategies for catching holes in the calendar and filling them, including:

- Share the load of calling people to fill short shifts, perhaps by rotating who will do the calling each month

- Instead of just passing around a sign up sheet at meetings, we could go over the signup sheet to check for holes before everybody leaves the meeting

Further observations and discussion:

- It seems like we're having this problem because people in the collective have diverse ways of managing their lives, some of us use the internet a lot... some don't, some of us plan a lot in advance... some don't

- Having a call list is good because it includes people who are not so involved in the FR's internet stuff

- It should be ok for people to say no if they're called about filling holes in the calendar

Proposal: The open shop committee should discuss what to do about making sure shifts get staffed, keeping in mind the discussion at this meeting... Approved

How should we go about signing stuff with CJ:

- Discussion of having everybody sign

- Some people not comfortable with that (potential legal implications???)

Proposal: We should ask a lawyer about how FR ought to go about signing documents with CJ... Approved

- Jessica will follow up on this through Bike PGH

{we took a break}

Review the agenda:

Proposal: Bump the sexual harassment policy stuff up to the top of the agenda... Approved

Sexual harassment policy (continued from last month):

- The person who prompted this discussion has been talked to about boundaries and consent and they seemed receptive

- Contacting other shops about what they have for sexual harassment policies:

+ Andalusia will follow up on it

- Diane & Johnny are working on a written policy for the next meeting

Proposal: Put a discussion of what Johnny & Diane write on the agenda for the December meeting... Approved

Heating the shop:

- Should we close the shop for the "coldest month"?

+ Too hard to predict when it will be cold

+ It would be bad to abandon winter cyclists

{Lots of discussion of what kind of heaters to use and ho much they would cost}

- How much the overhead radiant heater would cost:

+ Get numbers for how much it will cost to do an installation of our overhead radiant heater

+ Discuss technical details of the installation with CJ

{informal proposal I think}: The Wildcats (aka financial committee) should come up with some numbers for how much the heaters would cost and how much we make in the winter months

{some discussion of how we didn't get much figured out, how the meeting needs to end so people can leave, and how we really need to get the heat stuff figured out soon because it's getting cold}

What to do:

- Matt, Erland, and Will are going to be on the informal heat committee to follow up on getting heat